How Serious is Pouncey’s Trash Talk?

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. – It takes an awful lot for a team to out trash talk the Jets but Dolphins center Mike Pouncey is doing a pretty good job of that all my himself this week.

Pouncey along with Jets linebacker Aaron Maybin have been filling the backpages with their war of the words this week, including Pouncey calling Maybin “a joke.” Intermingled with all of this is Jets head coach Rex Ryan having to play defense on Wednesday for his comments in the days leading up to his team’s Week 3 game in Miami that they needed to put “hot sauce” on running back Reggie Bush. Ryan said that his comments weren’t meant as a threat to injure Bush but the Dolphins running back has repeatedly disagreed in the media.

On Wednesday, Maybin said that the Jets will try to knock Bush out of the game, just not in an illegal fashion. Pouncey responded back with fighting words of his own.

“Yeah, we get very angry. And I can tell you one thing, it’s going to be a physical game. And hearing that from a guy that was just known last year as one of the biggest busts in NFL history, to open up his mouth and say he’s going to hurt our starting running back?” Pouncey told Stephen A. Smith of ESPN Radio on his Thursday show. “No, we’re not going to have that. So it’ll be a physical game.”

Pouncey also told the show that Bush hasn’t expressed his feelings but it appears that Maybin’s comments have done enough to rile up the Dolphins for this game.

“You can tell Aaron Maybin that we’ll be after him on Sunday,” Pouncey said.

But how much of this is for real? Jets backup quarterback Tim Tebow was a teammate of Pouncey’s in college at Florida and he has seen up close and personal the trash talk from the Dolphins center.

“I don’t really know what they said, it doesn’t really bother me. They’re trying to show their emotions and express themselves,” Tebow said. “I will tell you this, Pouncey he’s a funny trash talker. That’s the thing about ‘Pounce,’ sometimes I think he does it for comic relief most of the time. Sometimes in college, you’d hear him on the field and you’d start laughing so hard. It’d be the most hilarious stuff. He’s pretty good at it.”
Tebow said his own trash talk is limited to a “God bless after a hard hit. I don’t talk too much trash.”

Kristian R. Dyer covers the Jets for Metro New York and also contributes to Yahoo!Sports. He can be followed for news, insight and snarky comments @KristianRDyer.